In the article, Gawande (who is also a surgeon) discusses how he had felt he had reached a “plateau” in his surgical skill, and looked at other professions which employed “coaches”:

[Coaching] holds that, no matter how well prepared people are in their formative years, few can achieve and maintain their best performance on their own.

Gawande considers examples of coaching in athletic and non-athletic venues, and writes extensively about the instructional-coaching program run by the Albemarle County public schools in Virginia. There, the program is completely outside the formal evaluation process and completely voluntary.

I’ve written extensively about the coaching program our individual high school runs with Kelly Young at Pebble Creek Labs, and why those two elements — outside the evaluation process and being voluntary — are also critical for its success. I’ll end this post with links those pieces describing what we do but, most importantly, I want to mention that Pam Moran, the Superintendent of the Albenarle County School District, has agreed to answer a few questions I’ve posed to her specifically about the coaching program. I’ll be posting those responses (and possibly thoughts from other staff involved in the program there) shortly, but wanted to get the word out about The New Yorker article quickly.

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I think that a professional development coach can only improve a person’s business skills and abilities. As the owner of a small business company, I think highly of coaching strategies in terms of training my staff.

My Second Book On Student Motivation!

My Second Book On Teaching ELLs

My book, "The ESL/ELL Teacher's Survival Guide: Ready-to-Use Strategies, Tools, and Activities for Teaching English Language Learners of All Levels," (co-authored by Katie Hull Sypnieski) was published in the Summer of 2012